I am apply for 2014 MFE programs and have some questions! Please help

H

Hyeonjoon Jang

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10/5/13
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Hello all,

I am a senior majoring in Industrial Engineering with emphasis on operations research at one of the BIG 10 Universities in the US. I have been preparing to apply to MFE programs for 2014 because I will be graduating in May next year. Basically, I have 3 questions to ask you experts!
Firstly, I have to decide which course I want to take among financial mathematics, object-oriented programming and introduction to real analysis. As for my previous math classes, I have taken the 3 engineering calculus, Linear algebra, differential equation, probabilities(2 semesters), Operations research, linear programming(graduate level) and basic stochastic process. As for programming, I have taken classes for Mat lab and C programming.
My question is which of the 3 courses mentioned above would enhance my chance of getting into the MFE programs? I wish I could take all the three, but there is a restriction on the number of credit hours one can take per semester and I have to make a decision in two weeks.
Secondly, I spent close to 2 hours on looking at the tracker to get the overall idea of average GPA and other test scores of applicants who were offered with admission from top schools. I am a little bit worried about my GRE scores. On my first attempt, I scored 166Q/149V/4.5AW. A little disappointed with the quant, but was very happy with the analytical writing part considering that I am an international student. Obviously, You can see that my verbal score looks really bad. My question is if admission committee would not even look at my application due to my low verbal score?
Lastly, My GPA is 3.98 and I am a recipient of the school's merit scholarship. I also have a work experience in the military back home and worked as a liaison officer with the US Marine Corps. My biggest worry is that I have no prior experience relevant to finance.
I would really appreciate it if someone here could provide me with his/her opinions. I have been meaning to ask questions here for a long time and I am glad I finally did it.
 
I'm not the best qualified person to answer your question but I would assume that your chance to getting into a top MFE program won't depend on one additional course you will be taking. My understanding is that MFE isn't like MBA where they require work experience. I don't know which MFE program you want to get into, but I would assume with your specs you would at least qualify for quite a few of them.

btw were u a Katusa?
 
Wow. Thank you for such a quick response. I will be applying to the top ten programs including both MFE and Finmath here in North America. Yeah, it is true that one course wouldn't really make a difference, but I guess I just wanted to hear some opinions from the experts who have already studied these courses. By the way, I was not a Katusa. I was a marine and was very fortunate enough to be sent to a detachment unit of the USMC and work there as a liaison officer. I assume you are from Korea too?
 
I wish I could edit the tile from "I am apply" to "I am applying". I can edit the contents, but the system does not allow me to edit the title of the thread
 
you still lack a lot of basic stuff subjects especially PDE, measure theory, linear regression, numerical analysis etc.

Try to score GRE subject test in Mathematics which is more relevant than general gre test.
 
I would take the object oriented programming class. If you want to work in finance, you can't have too much software background. I doubt that the real analysis course will do much for your future.

I would also take a look at some of the career threads on QuantNet and on the Wilmott forum. The job market is pretty grim in finance. While it is still challenging in software engineering, there are many more jobs. There has been huge structural chance in the finance industry. The number of quant jobs has shrunk and many people, if they find jobs at all, are working in risk management. The days of high salaries, signing bonuses and yearly bonuses are gone, at least for the foreseeable future.

Your job prospects and salary prospects would be much better with a masters in computer science, with some solid course work in machine learning, databases, No-SQL databases and the new Hadoop related technologies.
 
Thank you Ian for your input. It made me think of masters program in computer science for a while. But, I think I am going to pursue what I want to do even though the future job market is grim. I have been spending a lot of time on this site and could not help but notice that you were enrolled in one of the QCF & RM program..Can I ask you why you decided to pursue this degree then?
 
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